This paper investigates the names of musical instruments found in translations of the psalms from Latin into late Old English, i.e. the state of the English language in the 11 th and 12 th centuries. More precisely, evidence from five psalters will be examined-the Paris, Vitellius, Stowe and Tiberius Psalters, and the OE gloss of the Eadwine Psalter. As the paper is a contribution to a collective research project based on comparative philological study of early Bible translations (Museikon 3, 67), our focus will be on translation choices, and more occasionally on morphological analysis of the nouns concerned.